


Five Times Mickey And Susan Didn't Meet

by Nope



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-25
Updated: 2007-08-25
Packaged: 2018-11-02 22:50:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10954356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nope/pseuds/Nope
Summary: Two time travellers in tangential orbits.





	Five Times Mickey And Susan Didn't Meet

Mickey is bored. He swings his legs, careful not to kick the chair because Gran is close enough to smack him. She looks at him anyway, so he goes still. His feet don't touch the floor. He will be five soon, so maybe then, when he comes to Coal Hill School for lessons, not just show-around. Or sit around as it seems to be.

"I'm sure he'll be just a few more minutes," the receptionist assures them.

Gran lets out a disbelieving huff of breath and then smacks Mickey when he does the same. "You mind your manners, young man. You better not show me up."

Mickey sits on his hands and very gently kicks his feet back and forth. He watches a woman come in, perhaps the same age as his mum, wearing a grey coat. 

"I'm looking for someone, a teacher here. Barbara -- Miss Wright, she was. It might have been a while ago."

The receptionist hasn't heard the name, explains she's new to the job.

"We'd noticed," Gran mutters. "Excuse me, dear," she adds to the woman. "You don't mean Barbara Chesterton, do you?"

"Chesterton?" The woman almost laughs. "I believe I might, at that."

"She retired in eighty-one, moved up Pease Pottage way. I'm sure she's in the book -- were you one of her students?"

"Something like that. A lifetime ago." The woman smiles. "Eighty-one? Thank you."

The intercom buzzes and the receptionist calls to tell them they can go through and, when Mickey looks around, the woman is already gone. There's no sign of her out of the window though a catches an odd, mechanical grinding noise as Gran pulls him into the office. Perhaps the woman had a car or a motorbike or something, parked right outside, one in need of service. Motorbikes and cars are cool. Mickey's going to have dozens when he grows up.

#

Mickey knows engines. He can tell a Renault from a Ford by the way the engine rumble changes when you change up a gear. That and they have those nifty logos, bit of a give-away. Point is, he listens. You can hear a lot in an engine. Its temperament. Its age.

A Nissan Micra shouldn't sound like the glaciers of eternity grinding together.

The sad thing is, he's done this so often, footed it out of Clancy's because there might, just maybe possibly vaguely might be the barest slimmest tiniest chance that Rose has some way some how finally wonderfully amazingly come back -- the sad thing is, he's run out on his job so often that Steve doesn't even blink. Mickey the lunatic. And he skids to a halt in the main street, mumbling apologies between pants for breath to the ginger woman in the grey coat he almost bowled over, looking frantically every which way.

But there's no blue box. Just some cars, a pillar-box he doesn't quite remember, a few pedestrians. There's no blue at all.

#

"It's London," Rose agrees, "but you've got the year wrong again, Doctor."

Everything is decayed. Silent. Dead. A miscarried future. London the morgue. There's a poster up on the wall on the other side of the Thames. Mickey reads it out loud: "Emergency regulation. It is forbidden to dump bodies into the river."

"We'll try again," the Doctor says. He seems ... off, somehow. Like he's a million miles away. Or years.

"Aren't we going to look around?" Rose asks from the water's edge. "We always--" She looks back at the Doctor and stands abruptly. "I mean, yeah, okay."

Mickey's last in, as ever. There's a splash nearby and he shivers, darting quickly inside and making sure the door's firmly shut behind him.

The Doctor is chatting away nineteen to the dozen, bouncing around the console, and Rose is smiling, but Mickey knows her too well to be fooled. She's worried. Which means he is too -- but they're leaving, so whatever it is the Doctor doesn't want to see here, well, soon it'll be worlds and centuries behind.

It's odd, though; Mickey could swear he hears the TARDIS engines long before the rotor starts its rise and fall and later, long after Rose has gone to bed, he comes across the Doctor in the butterfly room, clutching a girl's shoe with a hole in the sole. He watches for a moment, then closes the door.

#

There's an explanation, but it involves thirteen-syllable words and the Doctor heavily implying it's all Mickey's fault, so he ignores it and pushes his way through the crowd. There are a lot of them, the majority women, and he's pretty sure Rose will have something to say about that as soon as he finds her.

The boy in pyjamas is arguing with both metal dogs, the girl in the snazzy jumpsuit and the short clowny one. The Aussie and the one who threatened him with thorns are trading barbs around the one in the frock coat, looking rather bemused. The other one with velvet is interceding between the American, the rather old looking school boy, a much younger Sarah Jane Smith and a man in a kilt. The Scottish one is leaning on his umbrella, watching everything with a calculating air -- he tips his hat at Mickey, who quickly looks away and almost runs into a young, rather elfin looking girl.

"Have you seen my Grandfather?" she asks.

"Uh -- which one is he again?"

She just shakes her head and pushes past. "Grandfather? Grandfather!"

Two steps away and he can barely hear her over the noise of the rest. The TARDIS may be larger than expected, but even the (apparently revamped, judging by the commentary) console room feels claustrophobic with two dozen (at least!) people in it. Ten of them are the same person and after an hour he's almost convinced none of them are actually Rose, so he just gives up and slinks off into the wardrobe to hide, where he meets a nice older woman who offers him cocoa and chocolate cake.

He never does get all of their names, not even the penguin's.

#

Two years after he decides to stay behind, he comes in to Torchwood to find a complete stranger in the labs. No - not complete. Dark hair and grey coat and a vague familiarity.

"Have we met?" They both ask, and then she waves something metallic at him and he's reaching for his gun and remembering he's once again left it in his desk when he recognises the thing.

"That's a sonic screwdriver," he says. "Who are you?"

"I'm picking up Artron energy," she says at the same time.

"Doctor?" They both ask.

"No, then," she says, looking ... disappointed? Sad? Relieved? He can't really tell.

"You're one of his, though," Mickey says. "Not a companion -- a Time Lord."

"I was a companion too." She smiles a little. "Is he here? No, no, of course not. I'd be able to feel him. I always could."

"He's not -- This isn't my home timeline," Mickey says. "You understand, right?" She nods. "He's on a parallel world. Harriet Jones is prime minister there. Before the Doctor decided to overthrow her, anyway. Sorry -- who are you?"

She's not listening, hasn't been since he said 'timeline'. There's equipment on the desk, the transfer plates from the ship they found under Snowdon, the one's they could never get to work, only it's clear she's been doing that sonic screwdriver thing, because the big yellow button in her hand looks more operative than not.

"Hang on," Mickey says. "Hey, leave that alone."

"Sorry, no time." She laughs. "How ironic. I used to have so much of it. I never really belonged anywhere, though. Except with my Grandfather."

With the Doctor. Like Rose. She's -- Oh, damn. Definitely operative.

"Wait! At least tell me--" Mickey blinks away the flash and she's gone to. "Your name," he finishes to the empty room. "Great. Just... How the hell am I supposed to write this up?"

It turns out the security system picked up most of her modifications -- they'll have working transfer plates in less than a year -- so it's not a complete loss. He hopes one day he'll see her again, so he can say thank you, so she can answer his question.

But she never does.


End file.
